Life is Beautiful
by cherryblu
Summary: a memoir of Sylar into the 23rd century and his relation to a certain Vulcan


_I never thought I would see the day I would wake up one morning and see a spaceship outside my window. Born in 1977, who would have thought I would live to see 2259 period? I lived a long and lonely life. A far lonelier life than I am willing to admit. Being a power-collecting serial killer who can never die can do that to a person. Telekenises. Rapid Cellular Regeneration. Shape shifting. The list goes on. However, once space travel became available and first contact was made, many took the opportunity to leave Earth. After the third world war in 2053, who could blame them?_

_World War III itself was interesting. Let me just say it was a war I may, or may not, have had a part of. While humanity remains oblivious of specials like me, The War was primarily over the issue of genetic manipulation and human genome enhancement that had spurned off eugenics projects of the 1990s. Reading the history books of that era makes me laugh every time. Historians have never been so wrong. Particularly because it was during the 2000s; and it involved ability manipulation and creation and not selective breading and genetic engineering. I should know. I lived it. Thank you, Noah Bennet and Primatech._

_After the founding of Federation Starfleet in 2161, I began to tire of my transgressions. Save for Peter Petrelli and Claire Bennet, there were no one who knew me. To fear me. But I did not mind. I literally took the chance to reinvent myself. I could shape shift into anyone I wanted to be. I even eventually learned to combine DNA samples into a new person, mostly because I could not take the risk of shifting into someone still alive and be recognized. That and I grew tired of looking like Nathan Petrelli. _

_I took various faces with various names. I own some land across the country, each with a condo by a lake. I would stay at one of the properties usually for a decade for a time. Down side of shape shifting is that the shape does not last forever. Shifting draws its energy from the body. When the body begins to tire, the shifter reverts to its original form. In my case, my healing ability can only do so much before making me mortal. I had made to fifteen years when I noticed white streaks in my black hair. When I was working on assembling warp drives in Iowa, some fool carelessly placed fuel accelerants near my station and sparks flew onto the fuel, causing a massive explosion. My wounds weren't healing, and the adrenaline forced my body to its original form. Noah Gray died that day. _

_This, however, did not deter me from living that way. But how I wished I was wearing a different face when I met _her_. It was a first time in a while for me to be seen with my true face, when I met Annabelle. I had taken a job in DC with a private distributor for military development, and decided to go to a near by bar for a drink. Annabelle was tending the bar. _

"Hey stranger_," she had said. "_Never seen you here before, you new to the area_?"_

"No,_" I had replied. "_I don't see the logic in inebriating myself, but today has been one of those days…"

"Well,"_ Annabelle started, "_everyone is allowed a day to indulge, Mr….?"

"Grayson. Gabriel Grayson,"_ I told her. I had decided to go by my name when I had my true face. When I made that decision, it forced me to think back to my watch shop. _Gray & Son's. _Grayson. Annabelle was the first woman to see me and made me special just as I was. Not exactly a lie, but I told her my life before meeting Chandra Suresh. I just tweaked the facts to fit the times. I found myself drawn to her. _

_I began courting her after that day. With all the powers I had collected over the centuries, whether by lobotomy or empathy, I never felt so _alive_. She was my equal, my goddess. She had been working at the bar to pay her way through George Washington University, so on the day of her graduation, I proposed. We moved to Minnesota soon after, a place she herself grew up. Since I had long ago dropped the self-serving persona Sylar, I could not deny her dream of raising a family in her childhood home. _

_A year into the marriage, we had a baby girl. Amanda. My Amanda Panda. It was then when I finally understood Bennet's terms of endearment towards his Claire Bear. It was sickeningly cute, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. My Amanda Panda and BananaBelle. My baby girl was so smart, I could not believe someone like me could create something as wonderful as Amanda. _

_There had been times when I worried my intuitive aptitude, the power source that drives my hunger to seek information on anything I could sink my teeth into, would get the best of me. I was tested when Amanda met her first Off-Worlder. She always had a knack for languages, for her mother was always bringing home data files of Earth languages-Terran to be politically correct-and Amanda would listen to them. Her mastery of the languages was seamless. Amanda, Annabelle, and I were attending a market celebrating the town's foundation 400 years prior to that day. The three of us were at a booth manned by two Ferengi. They were conversing in their natural tongue, and Amanda had seen something of interest that she wanted to inspect. She flawlessly speaks to the Ferengi, and while they were pleased that a 'Terran' girl fluently spoke their language, Annabelle and I stared wide-eyed at our daughter. _My daughter is an Omni-linguist!_ I thought to myself. After a hundred years of slumber, the hunger reared its ugly head. I feigned a headache, and left my wife and child at the market, tucked away safely from my grasp. I came so close to caving in…._

_Despite all my happiness, I knew it could not last. I have been living with my true face for twenty-two years, and in my true face I could not age. I could not die. By the twenty-third century, medicine and overall health had dramatically improved that the average human life expectancy was 115 years or so. Early on in the marriage I made it a routine to have a health regime to explain my youthful appearance. But I could only play that charade for so long. Had I been in a shifted form, I would have willingly traded my immortality for my family. It had not been the case. I was going to have to leave my family._

_Over the years I had reacquired many powers I had lost from when I was infected with the Shanti virus. One of those powers was induced radiation. While working on a flagship that would become the USS Indianapolis, I was stationed on the engineering deck installing plasma regulators near the warp drives. I tampered with some coils, causing a radiation leak. As the alarms went off, I had concentrated on this power. The explosion was grand, and I was the only casualty. It was ruled as negligence on my part, but as aggrieved as Annabelle and Amanda-she was only 19!-were, they were grateful no one else was hurt._

_Over the years, I kept close. I attempted to get close by shifting into various people, but Annabelle would have no other. As touched as I was by her loyalty, it saddened me because she would always be alone at night. With the ability to enter dreams, I stood outside her window one night. I concentrated on her, and slowly I could feel my breathing and heart beat syncing with hers. In this dreamland I created, I slid myself next to her._

"Gabriel?"_ she wept. _"I miss you."

"I know"_ I told her. "_I haven't left. Not really. But it is time to let me go."

"I don't want to let you go."

"It will be alright. Even though you won't see me, I'm always around."

"Promise me you'll keep an eye Mandi?"

"Of course," _I leaned in and kissed her forehead._ "I love you, my Bananabelle."

_Afterwards, I thought about reaching out to her in a different shape, but I could not be cruel. So I just kept my word and watched over my family. By the time Annabelle remarried, Amanda had gotten herself involved with a Vulcan ambassador named Sarek. In doing so she had to move off planet. On Vulcan. While shape shifting can change my appearance, it cannot change my fingerprints and genetic profile. To be able to travel off planet I have to submit both, and for as long as I live, I cannot risk exposure of my self by submitting both. As I had no way of finding a technopath, I resorted to tracking news media files of the couple to get updated of any and all political goings-on of a Vulcan-Human couple. _

_Fortunately Amanda came home for every Christmas holiday for three weeks, despite her Vulcan husband finding it to be 'illogical'. There were five Christmases when she did not return home. Media outlets speculated that attempts were made at conceiving children. They were successful. I had grown excited at the prospect of seeing my grandson. The first Christmas I saw my grandson, he was three Earth years old. For a three year old, he was rocking the bowl cut. I watched from a distance during every visit, until Spock was thirteen years old. _

_After many years of radio silence, media files exploded my e-box with news of a Vulcan entering the Starfleet Academy. It was none other than my one and only grandson, Spock! I packed my things and moved to San Francisco. I knew I was boarding on stalker mode, but the promise I made to look over Amanda had extended to Spock, and it was a habit I could not break. A family was the only thing I had ever wanted but was always denied, and I knew what people were capable of. I had to protect my family from people like me. _

_So when news came in that an attack on Vulcan had occurred and there was a mass genocide by way of the planet falling into a singularity. I stared at the view screen, watching and waiting for updates regarding Vulcan and the Flagships sent to their aide. After an eternity, I heard an explosion. I looked out the window viewing the Bay, and saw an extensive plasma drill. My terrakinetic ability sensed seismic activity and I came to the conclusion that the same drill was responsible for Vulcan. I knew my daughter was dead. Unconfirmed reports of the secondary fleet came in that all but one was destroyed. And of the Vulcan elders rescued, none were human. _

_I felt myself becoming Sylar again. With Nathan Petrelli's flying ability, I jetted into the sky towards the drill. I failed in protecting my Amanda, but I did what I could to protect everyone else. I reached the drill, and I tried to electrocute the circuit boards but to no avail. I resorted to telekinetically tearing away at the drill piece by piece. It was futile, but I marched on. I felt the drill jerk and shake. I looked up and saw a small ship I would later find out was manned by Spock. With precise aim, photon blasts destroyed the drill and it crumbles to the Bay. I saw the Gold Gate Bridge below and calculated that the drill would land on the bridge. It took all my strength to recourse the trajectory of the drill to its new landing spot. The bridge was still intact and no further casualties. For the first time I used my powers to help others, and it felt good._

~*~

It is strange how seeing Spock up close for the first time brought all those memories to me. It is three months later, and I had not expected to see Spock at the current establishment where I was currently dining. I was reading the science reports given by the _Enterprise_ crew. My chest ached when the lightning storm in space was the result of a singularity causing a rift in space-time, then and one twenty-five years ago. I know about space-time. Time travel is a fickle thing to mess with….

As I read the report, I hear a crisp voice, followed by laughter. Spock's name is spoken and I turn and see a young man who could almost pass as my double. Though Spock inherited his father's Vulcan ears and brows, he clearly has Amanda's eyes and my bone structure. Disregarding the current company Spock was with-I know them to be Uhura, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov-I walk up to him.

"Hello, Spock," I say. "You've gotten taller since the last time I saw you."

Spock gives me a curious look, "Do I know you?"

I shake my head. "No. But I know you. And your mother."

"You seem…familiar," Spock continues. "I do not recognize your face, but I feel we have met. How did you know my mother?"

"We're family."

THE END

Author's note: Sorry for the suckiness, but I had this story running my head so I typed it out till I was done. Its all in one sitting and it's the middle of the night so it prolly doesn't make much sense cuz im so tired.

Anyway, star fleet data I had retrieved from Memory alpha and then I tweaked it around.

Long live Zachary Quinto!


End file.
